The Telegraph is on a mission to drive 10 million registered readers

The Telegraph wants to grow its registered readers to 10 million. The goal is to shift away from valuing mass-reach audience numbers in favor of building a more loyal readership of logged-in users.

The benefits of doing so are clear. Advertisers will always want more detailed first-party audience data to improve campaign targeting, and registered users tend to be more ripe for converting into paying subscribers than flyby readers. That’s why there has been a flurry of registered-user drives at publishers such as The Times of London over the last year.

To get itself to 10 million, the publisher will invest in its newsroom, hiring 39 additional editorial staff. The publisher has identified six areas that it believes will help cultivate registrations and in which it wants to thrive: politics, sports, luxury and lifestyle, business of technology, money and travel.

“A registered reader — as opposed to an anonymous one — is far more valuable to the business than the vast majority of our audience as it stands now,” wrote The Telegraph’s CEO, Nick Hugh, in a letter to staff.